American Civil War historiography and publishing blogged daily by Dimitri Rotov.

5/08/2004

SATURDAY | Back to Malvern Hill on this McClellan Poetry Day, and to the writings of a best-selling author of the time, one Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911). Ward was a prolific New Englander who wrote on spiritual themes. I see from a net bio that she had over 56 books to her credit.

This is a poem you may need to read calmly, soberly, sitting down. It is laden with a sentimentality we would consider completely over the top; imagine Mac and Hooker and kittens and mother's cranberry pies all in one train of thought:

"Tell her"-but he wandered, slipping
Into tangled words and cries,
Something about Mac and Hooker,
Something dropping through the cries
About the kitten by the fire,
And mother's cranberry-pies;

The historic content is slight and I can't date the poem exactly, but the battle of Malvern Hill certainly inspired this work, so let's put on our Victorian spectales and have a look.

A MESSAGE

Was there ever message sweeter
Than that one from Malvern Hill,
From a grim old fellow,-you remember?
Dying in the dark at Malvern Hill.
With his rough face turned a little,
On, a heap of scarlet sand,
They found him, just within the thicket,
With a picture in his hand,
With a stained and crumpled picture
Of a woman's aged face;
Yet there seemed to leap a wild entreaty,
Young and living-tender-from the face
When they flashed the lantern on it,
Gilding all the purple shade,
And stooped to raise him softly,
That's my mother, sir," he said.
"Tell her"-but he wandered, slipping
Into tangled words and cries,
Something about Mac and Hooker,
Something dropping through the cries
About the kitten by the fire,
And mother's cranberry-pies; and there
The words fell, and an utter
Silence brooded in the air.
just as he was drifting from them,
Out into the dark, alone
(Poor old mother, waiting for your message,
Waiting with the kitten, all alone!),
Through the hush his voice broke, Tell her
Thank you, Doctor-when you can,
Tell her that I kissed her picture,
And wished I'd been a better man."
Ah, I wonder if the red feet
Of departed battle-hours
May not leave for us their searching
Message from those distant hours.
Sisters, daughters, mothers, think you,
Would your heroes now or then,
Dying, kiss your pictured faces,
Wishing they'd been better men?